Superintendent delivers State of Schools Address

Kirtland Schools Superintendent Bill Wade discussed the district’s new strategic plan and school safety during his March 12 State of the School Address.

The district, which is maintaining a steady enrollment, currently has 1,242 students, which is about 24 more than last year.

“We are staying pretty steady which aligns well with our study that we did my second year in the district where we are expected to stay within that 1,200-student range,” Wade said. “That’s kind of good information for the district

because many of the districts in Lake and Geauga counties have decreased by 10 percent.

“Kirtland has not seen that impact and if you talk to any of the Realtors in the area houses just fly off the market which is a testament to our community and our schools.”

The district collaborated last year with the community and the Kirtland PTA to develop a strategic plan for the district.

“Our mission is to empower our students to be productive citizens and we hope to achieve that through our vision of first life learning,” Wade said. “Really making sure that we can utilize technology in various teaching strategies to make sure that we are meeting students where they are at and stretching them so that they are getting the maximum education for where they are at.”

According to the strategic

plan the district’s vision is to provide personalized education for all students. It lists four goals to help accomplish that — personalized learning, a safe and secure environment, well-managed finances and an engaged community.

According to Wade, the strategic plan took almost a school year to craft and the district has been working very hard implementing the various strategies.

For the state report card, the district received an overall grade of a B. The district achieved an A in “prepared for success,” which, according to Wade, was one of the highest grades in the state.

Wade noted that based on the performance index Kirtland Schools was ranked in the top 10 percent of districts in the state.

Also, the district has been designated as an AP Honors district again.

The middle school classrooms were updated last year with flexible furniture to promote learning.

All the classrooms in

grades sixth through 12th have now been upgraded.

The district is currently working on securing contracts for the initial phases of upgrades for the fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms which will begin this year.

Wade said that he had read somewhere that 68 percent of the jobs that today’s student will have haven’t even been created yet, so they are faced with trying to prepare the students by teaching them the soft subjects such as critical thinking and problem solving.

To address this the district has created a graduate profile where the students will demonstrate they can be a communicator, critical thinker, problem solver, creative thinker, producer and collaborator.

The district believes that college prep should begin in the sixth grade and has started a program called “Excite, Explore, Engage,” which allows the students to explore different career pathways with focus on STEM, human resource,

education, law, administration and business.

The program continues into high school where students can explore the arts and what electives they should take.

The district is also working on developing a senior capstone project which will have students giving a portfolio defense that demonstrates they have mastered the skills laid out in the graduate profile. This could become a graduation requirement.

The School Board has approved the addition of a teacher at the elementary school so at the start of the school year there will now be a kindergarten through fifth grade Coding and STEM teacher.

The district has put a focus on student safety, with the purchase of a barricade system in every classroom and the installation of the 3M film over select windows to help make the glass shatterproof.

In addition to safety equipment the school has brought in speakers on Internet safety and the Hidden

in Plain Sight program and installed new Internet filters on the school-assigned electronic devices.

The filters can notify school officials on specific keywords such as a student Googling “suicide.”

Additional buzzers and visitor check in points will be added to the school buildings as well.

According to Wade, 73 percent of the district’s $14.5 million revenue budget comes from the taxpayer.

Six percent of the revenue comes from the state which funds approximately $800 per student.

The majority of the districts revenue goes to paying employees.

The district has budgeted to spend about $14.4 million this year, but according to Wade they are trending below that and are probably looking at spending $14.2 million by the time the budget closes at the end of June.

Kirtland Schools will have a renewal levy on the May ballot.